Dear America,
Sugar is not a flavour.
I agree with you, but I would also say, as a retort, that Marmite is not a food.
Marmite is a test of willpower.
Not with that attitude
Marmite is dingle berries in a brown anal paste.
That’s being too kind.
I prefer Nordic and Icelandic candy. Ammonium chloride covered black licorice is better than sugar coated high-fructose corn syrup.
Those are incidentally some of the happiest nations in the world. Depression is hardly an export.
https://www.weforum.org/stories/2018/03/these-are-the-happiest-countries-in-the-world/
Duh, they don’t keep the depression for domestic distribution - it’s exported.
Helps to have good social programs.
Ammonium chloride covered black licorice is better than sugar coated high-fructose corn syrup.
Salty licorice is so delicious. Last time I hit up the international store I found smoked salted licorice and it basically turbo crack to me. The only reason I haven’t rushed back and cleared the shelf is it’s like $10 a 120 g bag.
The Finns make a salty licorice liqueur!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salmiakki_Koskenkorva
I have to try it someday.
I love describing salty licorice to other Americans too. “So you know black licorice? Imagine it also being really salty and with a large hint of ammonia.” Their looks of revulsion are priceless.
That liqueur sounds interesting. I think I have an affinity for things that sound wonky to most people I know. Petrochemical smells in Islay scotch? Fantastic. The funky hot garbage/burnt electronics of pot still Jamaican rum? Awesome. The sensation of making out with a spruce tree some gins have? Delicious.
I think it’s the very definition of exported depression. But I also think I’d love it.
I don’t know if we see the same thing, but recently I got a small bag of salty black licorice from ikea, out of surprise that it’s really a thing, not just a TikTok challenge. I like black licorice, everyone like salt: maybe there’s some synergy like with chocolate and bacon? How bad can it be? So disgusting.
My father’s best friend was Dutch and he introduced me to their version, which they call Dubbel Zout. It’s super salty (dubbel zout means ‘double salt’) and I cannot get enough of it.
But then I’m one of the few Americans who seems to love black licorice and hate the red variety.
Having been an immigrant in The Netherlands, lets just say that their licorice is an acquired taste (which I myself never did, so congrats for liking that stuff).
I don’t think he gave me a piece expecting me to hate it, but he was surprised how much I loved it. I think I ate his entire supply while our trip to London (where he lived) lasted.
Sounds great! Never had Dubbel Zout, but I’ll keep my eye out for it.
Oh, and I totally agree that black is better than red licorice.
I love licorice too, the Panda one here in the US is very good. It’s polarizing, I don’t know so many people who like it but they all really like it, and it seems independent from the other flavors they like, some of my least adventurous eaters like it, and some of those with very broad plates don’t like it.
To add more evidence: Japan is not in the list and people here find licorice disgusting. You cannot find it anywhere except at ikea which is far away from here. And even there they only have one type which is okayish at best. PLZ SEND HELP!
Ha, my friend is half-Finnish and would go back to see her family. She’d always give me some salty black licorice as most people here don’t care for it. I never used to, but my tastebuds changed at some point (or, I guess, I only like the version from the Nordics; I haven’t had the versions from the US in decades so I can’t compare those).
I rather be destroyed by a comment then to be obese and ruled by an orange deranged criminal convicted sex offender clown.
Jokes on you, some of have the unfortunate luck of getting to experience both
I’ll give you this one, most “European” milk chocolate tastes better when there’s no lipolysis involved, which is common in Hershey’s.
Then again, there’s Chocolonely which blows the competition out of the water.
Yeah, I got a bag of mixed Hershey’s minibars from the US and that stuff was vile.
The mixed bags of candy always taste bad.
I’m not going to go out on a limb to defend fucking Hershey’s but I can say with confidence that the mixed bags of candy are universally a step down in quality.
It’s shitty candy meant to be given to children who don’t care. Individual bars will be better. Still fuckin Hershey’s don’t get me wrong but better.
Also, if you get them around Halloween, or full size near 4th of July, they’ll be fresh and much better. Still not great comparatively, but much better than a random bar in August.
You gotta wait until just before Halloween.
Don’t want to jump on that bag early and get last year’s left overs.
There’s no “last years leftovers” it’s not worth it to store it for a year. That’s why it always goes on clearance the day after Halloween.
It’s the cheapest commonly available option, of course it’s not good. (We have even worse stuff but it’s pretty much only seen around Easter)
The US has terrible and incredible options for pretty much everything. Beer, chocolate, beaches, whatever. It’s just never the mass-marketed stuff.
Yeah, I think this is a bigger deal than most people realize. US went through a generation of unfettered corporate search for the bottom line, with no restrictions, and we got what we deserve.
Things are finally swinging back the other way: we do have good chocolate, beer, bread, etc, but it’s ”premium”, expensive. So, do you choose the bread you can afford or the bread with texture, fiber, nutritional value, and less sugar? Somehow we need to get past this market segmentation, so better quality items can be more commonly available. I no longer eat mass market candy, bread, or beer, and I don’t think that’s pretentious partly because it also means I do without more often, and I don’t miss that swill
That’s fair, Europe has also plenty of cheap and subpar chocolate.
But none of the cheap European stuff is disgusting. It’s overly sugary, grainy, or dull-tasting. But still miles better than my Hershey’s experience.Milka comes to mind for me. I can have one piece and I’m good. It’s flavor is certainly better than Hersheys but ffs it’s so sweet it tastes like they forgot to add the chocolate.
I heard of Hershey’s just like other brands of American descent I was incredibly poised to try them (MTN dew, taco bell (this was the nineties, they weren’t in Europe yet).
Travelled to America, tried Hershey’s and spat it out, vile stuff.
Yeah it’s not great. I grew up with it and even then I only like it on smores. And I’m sure that’s more nostalgia than anything. By itself it’s just gross.
I keep seeing this about chocolonely and I am starting to wonder if I had a bad bar of it. The bar I had was chalky, mealy, and honestly one of the grossest things I have ever had in my mouth.
Being honest, it’s not worth calling home about it, but it’s above par with everything else you may find on a candy store. It’s mostly their free trade policies that’s giving them so much hype.
That said, some people go nuts for certain candy bars that I’ll rather lick dry cum out of a subway tile than eat one.
Lmao that’s a visual
I’ve heard American chocolate tastes different because they originally used spoiled milk to save money and eventually people got used to the taste and it became the norm.
I think I heard that on either How it’s Made or Modern Marvels
Not true. What it can happen is that some producers utilize lipolysis, which may cause the formation of butyric acid (AFAIK): https://www.psu.edu/news/research/story/finding-flavor-chocolate
I highly doubt anyone would use “spoiled” milk, as powder milk exists since 1802.
Hey man when you’re right you’re right.
That’s my bad I remembered it wrong.
Well, I’ve heard something akin to that and I checked it very recently. I heard before (even read it) that because milkeries in the US are far from chocolate factories, butyric acid was used to preserve milk for a long journey, but as Europe is tiny and can fit on the back of a large pick up truck, they didn’t have such problem.
That was a misunderstanding from the journalist that published that (AFAIK).
I can’t find the original, but this also talks about it: https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/hersheys-chocolate-tastes-like-vomit_l_60479e5fc5b6af8f98bec0cd
That’s exactly correct. It gave the milk a slightly spoiled taste which resulted in the chocolate being more bitter in flavor. I simply misremembered all the details.
Coming from Germany, I can confirm that the objectively correct level of sweetness is what they sell over there. America/UK are too sweet (obviously!). Japan is not sweet enough (duh!).
In other news, sweetness, just like spicyness, seems to be acquired taste and once you got brainsugared by one country’s Big Sweets you never come back.
Age plays a part. I don’t each much sweets as an adult in the US because they are usually cloying. I’d rather have some fruit. It was the opposite when I was a child.
I had some mild sweet Oreos from Korea recently, and I prefer them to normal ones, for instance.
Not sure how old you are, but the sweets may have a comeback later in life. AFAIK, the sweet taste receptors on the tongue are the last to deteriorate at old age, so all non-sweet food will start tasting more and more bland. Thus all the cake parties for the elderly.
At least that is what I half-remember from my studies, grateful for any corrections.
Having problems with sugar is not subjective
USAmericans not understanding just how sweet their sweets are compared to European sweets is just too good.
Most of us don’t even realize our God damned bread is too sweet.
Sweden here. If the candy isn’t trying to destroy your mouth, it’s no good.
Sweden: salt sweets, breakfast caviar, …
Denmark: Liquorice that will make you want to rinse with Vegemite.
Had to look up vegemite, thought it was like thermite.
Does the EU have Pixy Stix?
They’re literally just tubes of slightly flavored powdered sugar that you pour into your mouth.
Dollar stores used to sell generic ones for $0.01 each, and you could find jumbo ones that were like 20 of them in one tube.
sound like the perfect remedy to my depression
Pretty sure I gave the cashier depression when I figured out buying less than 13 at a time meant no sales tax… (I was 8-9y/o, every penny mattered)
Type 1 diabetic here. Sometimes I feel the same way.
We have somethng similar, but it is agressively sour and you are supposed to turn it into a drink. I did it once and it sucked. Pouring it straight to mouth however: delight.
I don’t know about candy but when I follow a bakery recipe from an American source I always cut the sugar amount in half and it still ends up a little too sweet for my taste.
I’m am American baker and I know this is anecdotal but I’ve always cut sugar in half (or more) and I have nothing but rave reviews. Someone just paid me $100 for a cake. And I’m a hobbyist.
I think that most people here just don’t know better, have never tried it any other way. And when you show them how it can be… they fall in love.
ETA: from recipes I get elsewhere. Most of my repipes are my own at this point.
Does “Europe” include “UK” (I mean not geographically but in terms of candy sweetness)?
I had coworker bringing some sweets from visit in UK and those felt extremely sweet to me. I grew up in Europe but live in US, and it felt sweeter than US candies.
Yes. It’s only the EU political union we’re no longer in. From what I’ve tasted of other European sweets they’re about the same.
Hmmm, so I’m starting to have theory that with local confectionary one already knows what they like and what they don’t, and when someone brings candies from another country you’re trying candies that normally wouldn’t eat at home so they might seem too sweet, too sour, etc…
I don’t know about the UK, but when I notice other candy from other countries is less sweet than the US, it’s not a direct comparison. They’re usually different types of treats, and my reaction is : wow you can make a candy out of something other than sugar or corn syrup. Maybe it’s dairy based with actual dairy, or nut based with actual nuts, but it can make an excellent candy even without the buckets of sugar
LoL depression as they main export.
Dude obviously never went there.
Americans are all hyped up on Xanax.
hyped up on Xanax
🤣 you’re right. It’s more like sedated than hyped.
Thank goodness for the scribbles, otherwise I might have learned who wrote this thing I liked and we can’t have that.
I live in Japan and definitely some sweets that I’ve brought back from the US to share as well as recipes I’ve made (from my grandmother’s cookbook) were too sweet for a number of folks (usually men, so there may be something else going on here with cultural images/norms and the like as men aren’t generally “supposed to” be overly fond of sweet stuff). Still, the vast majority of people liked them and wanted more. I do find myself toning down sugar in recipes, though. Less in grandma’s cookie recipes, less in the cornbread recipe I found online, etc.
You people have clearly not experienced Indian desserts, which can get absurdly sweet. For example, take gulab jamun: it’s basically a donut hole soaked in sugar syrup.
Well yeah America is like the wild wild west for food. Everything is fucking sweet even our bread. I hate our food in the us, Im excited for the new appointment. Maybe we can go back to eating and marketing healthy food, not just food that makes profits at the cost of the consumer. Food in the us can be a drug, very addictive.
Yeah, go chug that raw milk, big brain.
If you like yellow die #5 in your food just say so lil brain.
Yeah, the roadkill brain parasite guy is for sure gonna solve the problems at the FDA.
Cause the FDA is a joke!
